Sweat **** A

After acclaimed productions at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Arena Stage, the timely new play by Pulitzer winner and MacArthur fellow Lynn Nottage (Ruined; By the Way, Meet Vera Stark; Intimate Apparel) has finally arrived at the Public Theater. It was worth the wait. The play might have been subtitled “Reasons To Hate NAFTA” or “How the Rust Belt Creates Trump Voters.” However, while corporate greed, globalization, racism and immigration policy all underlie the action, the play is not a sociopolitical screed. Nottage wisely keeps our attention on vividly drawn characters and on how forces beyond their control are refracted in their lives. Most of the action is set in 2000 at an after-work bar popular with employees of a metal tubing plant in Reading, PA. We meet three middle-age women — Cynthia (Michelle Wilson), Tracey (Johanna Day) and Jessie (Miriam Shor) — who have worked together on the plant floor for over 20 years. Cynthia’s son Chris (Khris Davis) and Tracey’s son Jason (Will Pullen), who also work at the plant, are best buddies. Cynthia’s estranged husband Brucie (John Earl Jelks) also frequents the bar. Stan the bartender (James Colby) used to work at the plant too until he was injured by a defective piece of equipment. Oscar (Carlo Alban), the bar’s Hispanic porter, might as well be invisible for all the attention he gets from customers. Cynthia is black, but her race has never been an issue until she is promoted to management over others. Her new position is hardly enviable when the plant owners decide to downsize. The play’s first and final scenes are set in 2008. As the play opens, parole officer Evan (Lance Coadie Williams) is conducting separate interviews with Jason and Chris, who have finished prison terms for a crime they committed eight years earlier. We flash back to 2000 to see the escalating events that led to the shocking crime and finally back to 2008 to see the consequences. It all makes for a gripping experience. The cast is uniformly excellent. John Lee Beatty’s revolving set is evocative, as are Jennifer Moeller’s costumes. Director Kate Whoriskey (Ruined) once again does Nottage full justice. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including intermission.

Punk Rock *

When I saw two previous plays by Simon Stephens (Harper Regan [http://bobs-theater-blog.blogspot.com/2012/09/harper-regan.html] and Bluebird [http://bobs-theater-blog.blogspot.com/2011/08/bluebird.html}) at the Atlantic Theater, I thought his work was moderately interesting. When I saw his adaptation for the stage of Mark Haddon’s novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time [http://bobs-theater-blog.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-curious-incident-of-dog-in-night.html], I thought his work was brilliant. Therefore, I was looking forward to seeing the New York premiere of this 2009 drama, which received almost unanimous raves from the London critics. To say I was keenly disappointed with this MCC production would be a major understatement. Those who wish to avoid spoilers should stop reading here. One London critic described it as The History Boys meets Columbine, a comparison that is an insult to the former. Both plays are about the stress of English public (i.e. private) school students preparing for their A-levels, but all resemblance ends there. The teenagers in this play are all stereotypes: Bennett (Will Pullen), the bully; Cissy (Lilly Englert), his compliant girlfriend; Tanya (Annie Funke), overweight and usually overlooked; Chadwick (Noah Robbins), the bullied nerd; Lilly (Colby Minifie), the new girl with a dark secret; William (Douglas Smith), the troubled boy with a casual relationship to the truth who wants to date her; and Nicholas (Pico Alexander), the handsome jock that she prefers. The author puts them together in a pressure cooker and we wait to see who will explode. The final scene introduces the lone adult character, Dr. Harvey, played by David Greenspan, who, for once, manages to avoid his usual excesses. In a country where school shootings were not almost weekly occurrences, perhaps the play seemed more profound. For me it seemed merely extremely unpleasant and tedious. I will grant that the young cast is very good. The dialect coach Stephen Gabis got excellent results from them. Director Trip Cullman has not helped the play by tarting it up with the actors running around in animal masks between scenes. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes; no intermission (wise decision).

The Wayside Motor Inn **

Regular readers of this blog know that I am a devoted fan of A. R. Gurney’ plays. I was therefore very pleased to learn that Signature Theatre would present three of his works — two revivals and a new play —  this season. In addition, a Broadway revival of “Love Letters” with star (or stunt, depending on your point of view) casting is forthcoming. The play Signature chose to start the Gurney series is a rarely produced work from 1977. We meet five sets of people staying (or, in one case, working) at a nondescript motel outside of Boston. An elderly couple, Frank (the always fine Jon DeVries), who is suffering from heart trouble, and Jessie (Lizbeth Mackay, also very good) are in town to visit their newest grandchild. Vince, an overbearing father (Marc Kudisch, usually excellent, but stuck here with a one-note role) has brought his long-suffering son Mark (Will Pullen) for a Harvard interview that the father wants far more than his son. Andy (Kelly AuCoin) and Ruth (Rebecca Henderson) are a divorcing couple whose attempt to divide their possessions amicably goes awry. Phil (David McElwee) is a college student who has rented a room for the night to bed his girlfriend Sally (Ismenia Mendes) for the first time. Ray (Quincy Dunn-Baker) is a married traveling salesman who tries to pick up Sharon (an amusing Jenn Lyon), a waitress whose concern for her customers’ health is not appreciated by her employers. (Mendes, Henderson and Pullen appeared together recently in Your Mother's Copy of the Kama Sutra at Playwrights Horizons.) The play’s gimmick is that all five stories take place simultaneously on the same set. (Gurney’s acknowledges Ayckbourn’s similar experiments.) This idea turns out not to be as interesting as it sounds. The set becomes cluttered with characters from different stories who barely manage not to bump into each other. It would have helped if the stories were more compelling and if they somehow enriched each other. Unfortunately, there is only one fleeting moment when two stories connect. Andrew Lieberman must have had fun designing the set; the plaid wallpaper and orange chenille bedspreads raise hideousness to new heights. Kaye Voyce’s costumes are unremarkable. I’m not sure what director Lila Neugebauer could have done to prevent this slender work from making such a tepid impression. Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes including intermission.

Note: The stage is unusually high. Sitting in the third row, my eyes were level with its floor. Those in the first few rows on the right have a partially obstructed view.

Your Mother's Copy of the Kama Sutra **

Playwrights Horizons describes this new play by Kirk Lynn as a "tough-love comedy." So that's what it is? I never would have guessed with all the phony baloney goings on. I could barely get past the play's ridiculous premise -- that Carla (Zoe Sophia Garcia) will not marry Reggie (Chris Stack) unless he agrees to reenact their respective sexual histories "on" each other before they wed. She also does not want Reggie's ex, Tony (short for Antoinette, played by Rebecca Henderson), to be their best man. Got that? Alternating with scenes of these three adults are other ones involving three teenagers -- awkwardly intense Bernie (short for Bernadette, played by Ismenia Mendes);  Sean (Maxx Brawer), a shy boy who has a crush on her; and Cole (Will Pullen), a friend with suspect motives who suggests that Sean use a date-rape drug on her. The party they attend does not turn out well for them. The relationship between the two sets of characters is not revealed until the second act, which takes places 20 years after some, but not all, of the action in act one. The tough love comes then when we learn that it is hard to be a single parent with a teenager. The play is a literal mess as well as a figurative one -- the stage is regularly littered with clothes, books, beer cans, the contents of a purse, etc. for reasons that escaped me. Why two of the three females have boys' nicknames was also a mystery. Any relation the titillating title has to the play is faint and forced. What I was left with was a craving for lasagna, which is mentioned several times during the play. Laura Jellinek's set is appropriately dreary. Emily Rebholz's costumes are apt. Anne Kauffman, whose direction I have enjoyed twice before, does not shine here. Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes including intermission.